


enjoy sky blue

by HiraethONefoedd



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, F/F, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Beta, PLEASE DONT ATTACK ME, TMA AU, archival assisant!gwaine, archival assistant!arthur, archival assistant!gwen, archivist!merlin, no idea where i'm going with this but it's going Somewhere, no one asked for this but i made it anyways, sorry everyone, sorry to literally all of the characters. you dont deserve this., the magnus archives au, therefore im not sure about the quality of this, will contain tma spoilers, you don't need any knowledge of the magnus archives to read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23341852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiraethONefoedd/pseuds/HiraethONefoedd
Summary: When Merlin first got a job at the Magnus Institute, London, this was not at all what he had been expecting(no magnus archives knowledge necessary)
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	enjoy sky blue

**Author's Note:**

> hi! me again. sorry i posted one fic like forever ago and disappeared, promise i didn't mean to do that.  
> please be warned that this IS based off of a horror series, and thus will have sometimes intense horror elements. no knowledge of the magnus archives is required to read, but i highly encourage going to listen to it anyways! it's fantastic, an incredibly well-done horror-tragedy series with the main slow-burn pairing being canonically gay.  
> sorry for any ooc actions or dialogue. i haven't actually read merlin fic in what feels like forever, and my last rewatch was at least ten months ago. i'm trying my hardest i promise. but i'm also writing this at 4am and it's very difficult to assign roles to merlin characters for this au. please don't be intimidated by the weird format at the beginning, it'll be written mostly as a normal fic, with very little of the statement format!
> 
> not sure how often i'm going to be updating this, but i hope somewhat often. i'm also not sure where i'm even going to go with this, so... we'll see, i guess.  
> warnings at the end!! (please read the warnings if you have any triggers at all)
> 
> the title doesnt mean much in terms of the fic its just a reference to how i feel whenever i listen to tma  
> title from MAG 21: Freefall

**[SOUND OF A TAPE RECORDER, CLICKING ON, THEN SHUFFLING AS WHOEVER IS RECORDING TRIES TO GET SETTLED]**

**[MERLIN, RECORDING]**

Right. Hello then. This is, uh, Merlin Emrys-recording from the Magnus Institute, London. This is an organization dedicated to investigating the… bizarre accounts of people we get coming through our doors. I work in the archives, a storage location for statements that research wasn’t able to find anything on, scientifically. 

I’ve been promoted to replace Gaius Mire, the previous Head Archivist of the Institute, after his disappearance a month ago. I worked in Artefact Storage prior to this, and… well, I’m really not sure why the head of the place, Kilgharrah Kenneth, thought I’d make a decent Head Archivist, but here I am. Anyways-the place is a mess. Kilgharrah expects me to get all of these sorted and, well, recorded. I’ve been given three assistants to help organize and follow up on whatever statements I and they can. Guinevere Smith, Gwaine Strong, and one _Arthur Pendragon,_ who seems to believe he runs the Institute himself.

**[SOUNDS OF RUSTLING PAPER]**

Anyways. I’m recording this on a tape recorder as attempts to record on my laptop have gone rather poorly. I really hope this works.

Introduction complete.

**[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS OFF]**

* * *

  
  


Merlin glanced around the small room before he tossed the tape recorder down on the desk, taking a seat. _Right_ , he thought to himself. 

Across from him sat a piece of paper, containing a tale he was about to attempt to record, then file. It had refused to record on his computer-every time he had tried, the recording had simply come out static and distorted and incredibly frustrating. He had tried, Gwen had tried, Gwaine had tried, hell, even _Arthur_ had tried, and yet it was the same each time. He had almost given up then, telling Kilgharrah that the statement was refusing to record and thus couldn’t be put into the new system. Kilgharrah, the miserable bastard who ran the place, had simply given him an odd look and pushed a tape recorder towards him, telling him to try it.

He was, simply put, tired. It was the second day of this new job, and he was already sick of it. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting when Kilgharrah had marched into Artefact Storage, pulled him aside and told him he was getting a promotion, as well as moved to another department, but it certainly hadn’t been this. The archives were a mess, and Kilgharrah had insisted that each of the statements needed to be _recorded_ as they were sorted.

He felt a rush of frustration at the previous Head Archivist-a man named Gaius Mire. A distant relative of his, actually, Gaius had been the one to get him the job in Artefact Storage. He hadn’t known the man well-his mum had stopped talking to him long ago, for a reason she never cared to explain to him-and he had only met him when he had been desperate for work, and his mum had called up _everyone_ she knew in search of it. And it had been _everyone_. Including Gaius, who had managed to get him the interview with Kilgharrah, and ultimately the job.

Gaius had been the Head Archivist until he had proceeded to go missing, last month, and Kilgharrah, for some reason, had decided that _he_ was the perfect person to succeed Gaius. He had worked in _Artefact Storage_ , honestly, what was Kilgharrah thinking? He had somewhat liked it there, even, the others had been fun to work with. And having him take over his _missing uncle_ ’s post didn’t exactly seem effective to Merlin. Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute was hardly a title that seemed like it should be inherited, and there wasn't exactly anything else connecting him to the archives in any way. Oh, well. At least Gwaine had been moved with him.

And Gwen. Gwen was lovely, though prior to them being moved to the same team he had only spoken to her in passing as he entered the building. She was kind, hardworking and genuinely seemed to want to do a good job in the archives. The same couldn’t quite be said of Gwaine, who spent most of his time irritating Merlin whenever he could, and messing about the archives other times. Merlin was sure he would start contributing _eventually_ , but he had yet to. Still, they were friends, and Merlin didn’t want to start bossing him around, even though he _technically_ was the Head Archivist now and therefore Gwaine’s boss, and so he was willing to put up with his slacking off for a bit longer. _Arthur_ , on the other hand, was simply insufferable. He was irritating in all the wrong ways, and Merlin simply could not stand it. He walked around the archives as if _he_ were in charge. Merlin couldn’t wait until he got a mission to send Arthur out to investigate, to get him out of the archives. Even if it were only temporarily, it would be a welcome relief.

He sighed, picking up the paper. “Alright,” he began. Hesitantly, he clicked the tape recorder to record. “Statement of Mary Thomas, regarding a bizarre encounter with a man on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given April 22nd, 2012. Audio recording by Merlin Emrys, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

* * *

Gwen walked in as he was listening to the recording to make sure it had worked. “Ah,” she said, looking at it, smiling, “so it worked, then? That’s good. From the look on your face, it had seemed like you were ready to explode if it didn’t.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He smiled back, “finally got a solution, from the looks of it.”

“Freaky statement, isn’t it?” She asked, after a moment.

“It’s about a supposedly floating man in an alleyway asking for a cigarette,” he let out a small laugh, “it’s actually almost comedic.”

“But her phrasing!” She said, “you can’t say it doesn’t sound slightly ominous? They compared it to an _anglerfish_ , said that its face was freakishly blank, and… damp? Its mouth didn’t even open as it talked!”

“ _His_ mouth was moving just fine, I’m sure.” He said, “come on, it sounds like Mary Thomas was, well, not well, when she gave her statement.”

“You don’t honestly think that?”

“Oh, I definitely do.” He didn’t.

The truth was, he _wanted_ to, but… his own experience had given him a frame of reference he didn’t like to consider. Strange things were perfectly possible, he had learned so at a young age. Possible, but much easier to ignore and explain away. Perhaps getting a job at the sole place dedicated to studying such occurrences wasn’t the wisest decision if that was his goal, though. Perhaps he needed to rethink some of his life decisions. In his defense, he had somewhat been thrown into this job by his uncle, and there _had been_ no other jobs available for someone with his specific degree just about anywhere in London, and then his mother had started encouraging it and he _really_ didn't want to tell her that the reason he didn't have a job yet was because he had turned down an opportunity. “Anyways, nonetheless, some followup is needed, as is protocol. Do you mind looking into it?”  
“Yeah, sure, I’m on it.” She picked up the piece of paper, looking over it again.

“Thanks, Gwen. You're the best. But-take Arthur with you, won’t you? He’s insufferable.”  
“He’s not _that_ bad, Merlin.”  
“He definitely is.”

Gwen just let out a small laugh and shook her head at that. “I’m going to go get started now. See you around.”

“Right. See you!” He called out, as she left. He sighed again, as he sat back in his chair, suddenly feeling extremely tired.

**Author's Note:**

> warning for chap 1: smoking mentioned in passing, disappearance of a character
> 
> (i will try to keep the warnings updated as i go!) most of the warnings will be on about the same level as the events involving them in tma. so somewhat intense. there's some things i can't bring myself to write, though, so you're safe from those i guess.  
> it should be noted that gaius and merlin aren't close in this, despite being related. those of you who listened to tma can probably guess why gaius is missing. sorry gaius. i almost feel bad.
> 
> sorry for the kind of short chapter!! i'll try to write longer ones, and it should be easier as the plot thickens.  
> once again. sorry for ooc. i promise im working on it. this is what happens when u shove characters into roles at the magnus institute. chaos.


End file.
